8MM Tape drives

Subject: 8MM Tape drives I hit the local recycler today and purchased a few tapes drives. Snagged a DDS3 external, DDS4 external, and a cool looking IBM drive that I was hoping might have been AIX. Turns out its an 8MM Mammoth 20/40GB drive (looks like ebay #290335147769). The drive had a couple AS/400 stickers on it and appears to be HVD (with terminator attached on the back). Are these drives pretty decent, reliable, and fast? I don't have any experience with them and grabbed it because I like collecting any kind of removable media drive I don't have. Turned it on (fan must be moving quite a bit of air by the sound of it) and the LCD went through diagnostics and then to a ready state with no tape so I assume its not DOA so far. Just curious what you guys think before I go looking for tapes and a cable to connect it to a HVD 68 pin card in my SUN U5. I assume Solaris 8 might know what to do with this thing, or PC backup software will work with it. are very stable indeed. I only use SE drives, but that should not have any influence on my answer. 4 mm drives (DDS3...) are based on the same experience a PITA. I once had a drive pulling the tape out of the cassette and wrap it around the motor. the customer was not very pleased, as it was to be used as evidence in a fraud case. Nico